War powers, unitary executive theory, and what is liberal

I think anyone reading me for a while knows I detest the unitary executive theory. If you do not, take a look at the archives under "War on Terror" or use the search box at the top with the word "neo-conservative." I do think that George W. Bush's love of the theory might be the aftereffects of his partying lifestyle. That is, he has chemically induced delusions of his own grandeur.

On the Congressional side of things, I get angry contemplating its supine attitude towards its warmaking responsibilities. Unlike President Bush, I think the Congressional problem comes from us, the citizenry, because they fear making a stand that we will not like. I say grow a spine. Iraq and our current standing in the world resulted from Congressional spinelessness.

Personally, I think my views on these points make a conservative. Maybe even reactionary. Which leaves me wondering if I am a liberal or a conservative - but knowing I disagree with the Republican Party, with neo-conservatives, and probably Joe Lieberman, too.

I do find myself agreeing with George Will's Warmaking and Congress:

While legislators try to leash a president by tinkering with a weapon, a sufficient leash -- the Constitution -- is being ignored by them. They are derelict in their sworn duty to uphold it. Regarding the most momentous thing government does, make war, the constitutional system of checks and balances is broken.

And:

All this refutes Rudy Giuliani's recent suggestion that the president might have "the inherent authority to support the troops" even if funding were cut off. Besides, American history is replete with examples of Congress restraining executive warmaking. (See "Congress at War," a book by Charles A. Stevenson.) Congress has forbidden:

Sending draftees outside this hemisphere (1940-41); introduction of combat troops into Laos or Thailand (1969); reintroduction of troops into Cambodia (1970); combat operations in Southeast Asia (1973); military operations in Angola (1976); use of force in Lebanon other than for self-defense (1983); military activities in Nicaragua (1980s). In 1993 and 1994, Congress mandated the withdrawal of troops from Somalia, and forbade military actions in Rwanda.

And while I hope the first sentence of this a bit of the canting Will we see all too often, I agree with the sentiment for change:

For today's Democrats, resistance to unilateral presidential warmaking reflects not principled constitutionalism but petulance about the current president. Democrats were supine when President Clinton launched a sustained air war against Serbia without congressional authorization. Instead, he cited NATO's authorization -- as though that were an adequate substitute for the collective judgment that the Constitution mandates. Republicans, supposed defenders of limited government, actually are enablers of an unlimited presidency. Their belief in strict construction of the Constitution evaporates and they become, in behavior if not in thought, adherents of the woolly idea of a "living Constitution." They endorse, by their passivity, the idea that new threats justify ignoring the Framers' text and logic about shared responsibility for warmaking.

Unless and until Congress stops prattling about presidential "usurpation" of power and asserts its own, it will remain derelict regarding its duty of mutual participation in warmaking. And it will merit its current marginalization.